John Cage entered into silence twenty years ago today. Allan Kozinn of The New York Times has a fine appreciation here. My own take on 4'33" is here.
The picture above is from this excellent Cage resource.
Showing posts with label John Cage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Cage. Show all posts
12.8.12
what stays with me: john cage
John Cage entered into silence twenty years ago today. Allan Kozinn of The New York Times has a fine appreciation here. My own take on 4'33" is here.
The picture above is from this excellent Cage resource.
7.7.10
What Mahler Tells Me
Today is Gustav Mahler’s 150th birthday.
My first encounter with Mahler was playing the bass trombone part in a performance of the First Symphony in North Carolina in the mid-1970s. The Symphony, with its themes of the newness of life, discovery, and triumph, was a perfect introduction for me at about 20 and at the very beginning of finding my way as a musician, composer, and human being.
To learn this piece from the inside, as it were, embedded in me just how entwined composing and performing are. It was the first time I had ever played in such a big, complex piece. So much of what I learned from it has been with me since then that it’s hard to say specifically what happened. But something did—something clicked.
I’ve probably heard the Second Symphony (“Resurrection”) performed more than any other piece of music (with Cage’s 4’33” a close second), and it’s always very moving, even when the performance doesn’t quite make it. The striving of an ensemble playing and singing near or even a little beyond its limits embodies part of Mahler’s poetic vision for this piece.
My favorite Mahler symphony is the Sixth, with its clear, rigorous form and content that strains at that form. Mahler’s was at his height as an orchestrator in the Sixth, and every page yields a revelation of orchestration and/or counterpoint. Many of the Symphony’s most effective passages are a result of the composer’s deft, imaginative orchestration of simple counterpoint, sometimes with as few as two voices. That such dark expression can come from such simple, clear means has always struck me as one of the mysteries of art.
“The symphony is the world; it must contain everything.” Mahler’s famous dictum* applies to his entire output even more than it does to individual works. Without drawing too fine a point on it, his symphonies and songs sketch out an artistic biography moving from the impetuosity of youth in the early pieces, through a thoughtfully fervent maturity, finally to the resignation and acceptance embodied in the last works, Das Lied von der Erde (“Song of the Earth”) and the Ninth Symphony.
The orchestras are as big in these last works as they were in the earlier symphonies, but here Mahler has reduced his art to its essential elements. The effects and climaxes are as stunning and as moving as ever, but the means are smaller, the brushstrokes finer. The emotions are raw, but expressed without histrionics. What we get from Mahler at the end, something he never had in his tumultuous life, is peace.
* A word on dicta. When an artist makes a statement like Mahler’s, he’s really just speaking for himself. He may want you to think he is prescribing an approach for everybody, but he isn’t; he’s describing his own, and hoping you’ll take it seriously. If you take these dicta too seriously, you end up with a headache, and a bad case of style wars.
My first encounter with Mahler was playing the bass trombone part in a performance of the First Symphony in North Carolina in the mid-1970s. The Symphony, with its themes of the newness of life, discovery, and triumph, was a perfect introduction for me at about 20 and at the very beginning of finding my way as a musician, composer, and human being.
To learn this piece from the inside, as it were, embedded in me just how entwined composing and performing are. It was the first time I had ever played in such a big, complex piece. So much of what I learned from it has been with me since then that it’s hard to say specifically what happened. But something did—something clicked.
I’ve probably heard the Second Symphony (“Resurrection”) performed more than any other piece of music (with Cage’s 4’33” a close second), and it’s always very moving, even when the performance doesn’t quite make it. The striving of an ensemble playing and singing near or even a little beyond its limits embodies part of Mahler’s poetic vision for this piece.
My favorite Mahler symphony is the Sixth, with its clear, rigorous form and content that strains at that form. Mahler’s was at his height as an orchestrator in the Sixth, and every page yields a revelation of orchestration and/or counterpoint. Many of the Symphony’s most effective passages are a result of the composer’s deft, imaginative orchestration of simple counterpoint, sometimes with as few as two voices. That such dark expression can come from such simple, clear means has always struck me as one of the mysteries of art.
“The symphony is the world; it must contain everything.” Mahler’s famous dictum* applies to his entire output even more than it does to individual works. Without drawing too fine a point on it, his symphonies and songs sketch out an artistic biography moving from the impetuosity of youth in the early pieces, through a thoughtfully fervent maturity, finally to the resignation and acceptance embodied in the last works, Das Lied von der Erde (“Song of the Earth”) and the Ninth Symphony.
The orchestras are as big in these last works as they were in the earlier symphonies, but here Mahler has reduced his art to its essential elements. The effects and climaxes are as stunning and as moving as ever, but the means are smaller, the brushstrokes finer. The emotions are raw, but expressed without histrionics. What we get from Mahler at the end, something he never had in his tumultuous life, is peace.
* A word on dicta. When an artist makes a statement like Mahler’s, he’s really just speaking for himself. He may want you to think he is prescribing an approach for everybody, but he isn’t; he’s describing his own, and hoping you’ll take it seriously. If you take these dicta too seriously, you end up with a headache, and a bad case of style wars.
12.1.10
13.2.09
Gloria Cheng, piano
LUTOSŁAWSKI: Sonata; STUCKY: Four Album Leaves, Three Little Variation Pieces for David; SALONEN: YTA II, Three Preludes, Dichotomie. Gloria Cheng, piano. Telarc 80712. 72 minutes.
I'm a little late to the party on this, but I wanted to put in a good word for Gloria Cheng's disc of piano music by Witold Lutosławski, Steve Stucky, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Lutosławski's Sonata is a very early work, written in 1934 when the composer was only 21. The Sonata is a very skillfully composed, melodically rich piece in the Bartók-influenced style that marked Lutosławski's music until his encounter with John Cage. Some of the composer's musical trademarks are already present here: bright, ringing sonorities, free-flowing melodic expression, and rhythmic flexibility. Cheng's reading emphasizes these elements and reveals the Sonata as an important step in its composer's development and a worthy piece in its own right.
The character piece collections by Stucky and Salonen that make up the bulk of the program carry a debt to the mature Lutosławski. The Stucky I have heard has frequently reminded me of Lutosławski and the juxtaposition here underlines the similarities. I don't know Salonen's music nearly as well as I do Stucky's or Lutosławski's, but these pieces sound like they are descended from Lutosławski as well. They are well-written, idiomatic, and expressive.
It may be that Cheng's performances emphasize those elements that all of these pieces share, or it may be that I'm prone to hear similarities due to their appearing on disc together. In any case, Cheng's sensitive, probing, and exciting playing make this disc a rewarding experience, and fully deserving of the praise it has received.
I'm a little late to the party on this, but I wanted to put in a good word for Gloria Cheng's disc of piano music by Witold Lutosławski, Steve Stucky, and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Lutosławski's Sonata is a very early work, written in 1934 when the composer was only 21. The Sonata is a very skillfully composed, melodically rich piece in the Bartók-influenced style that marked Lutosławski's music until his encounter with John Cage. Some of the composer's musical trademarks are already present here: bright, ringing sonorities, free-flowing melodic expression, and rhythmic flexibility. Cheng's reading emphasizes these elements and reveals the Sonata as an important step in its composer's development and a worthy piece in its own right.
The character piece collections by Stucky and Salonen that make up the bulk of the program carry a debt to the mature Lutosławski. The Stucky I have heard has frequently reminded me of Lutosławski and the juxtaposition here underlines the similarities. I don't know Salonen's music nearly as well as I do Stucky's or Lutosławski's, but these pieces sound like they are descended from Lutosławski as well. They are well-written, idiomatic, and expressive.
It may be that Cheng's performances emphasize those elements that all of these pieces share, or it may be that I'm prone to hear similarities due to their appearing on disc together. In any case, Cheng's sensitive, probing, and exciting playing make this disc a rewarding experience, and fully deserving of the praise it has received.
8.11.08
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